
Class l6Tl ^^1 



MAKING THE GRADE 



MAKING THE GRADE 



BY 
C. V. MOSBY, M.D. 



ST. LOUIS 
THE HIGHLAND PRESS 

19 17 






Copyright, 1917, By The Highland Press 



TRAflSFERRED F^Oi 
COPY.^!QHT OFFIO? 

WAY 25 m 



c 1917 



To Mother who Urged 
To Father who Guided 



FOREWORD 



Every individual has an inherent desire 
to win. Ask the boy, the girl, the youth, 
the maiden, or the middle-aged what of the 
future. Every one will tell you that he 
expects to reach his goal, that he expects 
to sail into the harbor of old age with 
a competency and with his hopes realized. 
Alas! however, tlie possibilities of this 
achievement grow dim with the passing 
years, and fully eighty-five per cent of the 
world's populace reach the sear and yel- 
low time of life with the howl of the wolf 
dangerously near ! This human waste is a 
serious economic problem. It indicates 
that our system is wrong somewhere. Is it 
in our boasted educational institutions? 
Are we training wrong? Sometimes I 
think we are. It would seem more logical 
to train a boy or girl to know themselves, 

9 



10 MAKING THE GRADE 

to know the great laws governing life, to 
know the principles upon which success is 
founded, than to take years of time 
familiarizing one with a language that is 
never used and with mathematical prob- 
lems that have no bearings on life. I 
would rather my boy knew his biology and 
became acquainted with his animal and 
vegetable ancestry than to be able to read 
^^ Caesar's War With the Gauls/' in the 
original tongue. 

I would rather he knew that courage, 
fidelity, optimism, imagination, patience, 
and endurance were necessary in the 
achievement of success than be able to 
solve some difficult problem in calculus. 

You may say that childhood is no time 
for the consideration of life's serious 
problems. Let me tell you that the sug- 
gestions planted in childhood become the 
serious problems of life, so why not plant 
in childhood the right kind. Making the 



MAKING THE GRADE 11 

grade is the real problem for all. It 
makes no difference what your religion or 
yonr philosophy may be, the crux of every 
life is centered upon whether you have 
been able to climb the hill. Suggestions 
rule our lives. Consciously or uncon- 
sciously we are influenced thereby. If the 
suggestions set forth in this little volume 
help some fellow traveler to climb the hill 
and to make the grade, then, like other sug- 
gestions, its life cycle will have been com- 
plete. — C. V. M. 

Webster Groves, 
St. Louis County, 
Missouri. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 
Introduction 17 

CHAPTER II 
Health . . . . ~ 24 

CHAPTER III 
Endurance 32 

CHAPTER IV 
Imagination 40 

CHAPTER V 
Patience 47 

CHAPTER VI 
Courage 54 

CHAPTER VII 
Self-Conpidence 62 

CHAPTER VIII 
Optimism 69 

13 



14 MAKING THE GRADE 

CHAPTER IX 
Faith in the Success of Your Undertaking 76 

CHAPTER X 
Poise 83 

CHAPTER XI 
Correct Estimation op Values .... 91 

CHAPTER XII 
Honesty of Purpose 98 

CHAPTER XIII 
Pleasures 106 

CHAPTER XIV 
Knowledge 112 

CHAPTER XV 
Industry 120 

CHAPTER XVI 
Concentration 127 

CHAPTER XVII 
Initiative 133 

CHAPTER XVIII 
Conclusions 141 



CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTION 

AN automobile that cannot climb a hill is 
^^^"^ worthless. When a horse balks every 
time the going gets hard, it is branded as 
a plug and loses its value. When a man or 
a Avoman abandons his or her purpose in 
life every time difficulties confront them, 
they become closely akin to the balky horse 
or the automobile that carries an inferior 
motor. A country that stretches away on a 
dead level is very uninterestrag. It takes 
the hills, the valleys, and the mountains to 
give the charm to a landscape. Mountains 
have always had an attraction for man. 
They have lured the artists, inspired the 
poets, and charmed the dreamer, and they 
have imparted courage, manhood, integ- 
rity, and resolute purpose to all who live 
in their shadows. 

17 



18 MAKING THE GRADE 

Historians speak of the hardy mountain- 
eers of Switzerland and Scotland, and in 
these countries the spark of liberty was 
kept alive when tyranny ruled in other 
lands. Mountains have charmed because 
they presented difficulties to those who 
would enjoy their fastness, and to be really 
happy one must have difficulties to over- 
come. 

A\nien you fatten a hog, you restrict its 
field of activities, you take all efforts of 
obtaining a living away from it, you surfeit 
it with food, and the hog eats and dies. 
The more it eats and the fatter it becomes, 
the more quickly will come its end. So it is 
with life. Take away the difficulties, level 
the mountains, reduce the grades, make 
living one unending monotony, and you are 
dead. The men who do things are the hill 
climbers. They take the grade on high 
and they go to the top without heating the 
motor. Anything in this life that has a 
tangible value must be fought for. Com- 



MAKING THE GRADE 19 

pensation has laws that never vary. When- 
ever you get something for nothing, yon 
are paying the highest price for it and this 
price is usually that of self-respect or lack 
of effort. 

When an athlete ceases to train, he is on 
the toboggan slide headed for oblivion. 
When men cease to climb, when they strike 
the dead level of life, they begin to toll the 
knell to their own funeral. 

There is no sadder spectacle in modern 
life than that of the man or the woman 
climbing the hill to the Goal of Success, 
financial or otherwise, in order that their 
sons or daughters may be spared similar 
efforts. A ball rolls down hill much faster 
than it can be carried up, and it strikes the 
bottom with a thud. Start an untrained, 
unsophisticated young man in life with 
plenty of money, a good credit, or an estab- 
lished business, and ninety-nine chances 
out of the hundred, you put the ball of his 
life at the top of the grade and give it a 



20 MAKING THE GRADE 

push. It is your fault, not his, that it flies 
through space on its downward plunge and 
hits the bottom with a crash. 

To be capable of climbing hills you must 
prepare for it Avhile the machine is being 
built. You can't put weak material into a 
car and expect it to stand the strain of the 
mountain trail. You must build every 
piece of your machine with an understand- 
ing of what it will go through ; it must be 
tried and must stand the acid test. So it 
is in life, you must build for hill climbing. 
Very little of life's journey lies along the 
shaded brook, most of it is over hills, 
across deserts, and up rugged mountain 
sides. There would be no glory in success 
if it were easy to achieve, and there would 
be no pleasure in achieving if it came by 
the mere asking. A life of ease is a life of 
failure. If you would be a success, climb. 
Travelers from all over the world make 
pilgrimages to Switzerland to climb the 



MAKING THE GRADE 21 

Alps ; and the more difficult the ascent, the 
greater the pleasure in the climb. Every 
life has its Alps, some more difficult than 
others, but none impossible. We can climb 
them all. 

A great injury is done young men and 
young women today in withholding from 
them the necessity of preparing for moun- 
tain climbing. When an engineer starts on 
a trip he must know in advance something 
about the road he travels and how much 
fuel will be needed to make the run. His 
predecessor acquaints him with the curves 
and with the grades that must be overcome 
and he prepares accordingly. AVhen a bat- 
tle is fought, the Avise commander charts 
the ground, marks the hills, the valleys, 
and the plains. This knowledge gives him 
an advantage in deploying his forces and 
helps him to make the grades. Life is a 
battle, mth success as the victory to be 
w^on. It Avill pay every man and woman 



22 MAKING THE GRADE 

to chart well the field over which the 
fight is to be waged and build for the 
struggle. 

It is just as necessary to test yourself 
as it is necessary for the manufacturers to 
know that every article that goes into the 
building of their machines is first-class 
and will stand the strain. The highway 
of life is strewn with junk, — could not 
stand the strain. Ninety-five per cent of 
the men going into business fail — could 
not make the grade. Only about sixteen 
per cent of life insurance policies taken out 
are carried through — could not stand the 
test. There is something pathetic in the 
mass of broken human machinery that lies 
piled up at the bottom of the hill. It re- 
sembles the debris that floats upon the 
water after a disaster at sea, or the wreck- 
age that strews the battlefield after the 
carnage is over. ^^ Could not stand the 
test" is the inscription on the stone that 



MAKING THE GRADE 23 

is erected over the grave of buried hopes 
and blasted lives. 

^^How can I make the grade? '^ is the 
query of the man who knows life; and 
every hour is spent in an effort to solve 
this problem. 



. CHAPTER II 

HEALTH 

"V/^OU cannot climb many of the hills in 
■^ life nnless you have health. One of 
the saddest spectacles of the present day 
is the physically unfit that one sees on 
every hand. In the street cars, on the 
Pullmans, at the theatres, — everywhere 
you see the maimed, the halt, and the 
blind. Children start life with a mortal 
handicap and they never overcome it. 
They grow up with flat feet, become pigeon- 
breasted, wizen-faced neurotics; adenoids 
abound, enlarged tonsils are found every- 
where; malformed jaws are met at every 
turn. 

Young men seem to care nothing for the 
charm of physical strength and great en- 
durance. The gymnasium does not appeal 
to them. They never learn the value of a 

24 



MAKING THE GRADE 25 

strong, rugged, enduring constitution. Our 
school system is much at fault. Our teach- 
ers have not grasped the great idea. It is 
a case of the blind leading the blind. 

Biology is the foundation stone of educa- 
tion ; but a majority of our young men and 
women will graduate from our so-called 
high schools with only a vague understand- 
ing of the meaning of this word. Few are 
ever told where they belong in Nature. 
They know nothing of their kinship 
with the rest of the animate world. 
Nothing is enduring unless founded on 
fact. Education is of no value when its 
concepts are false. What matters it if one 
knows Greek or Eoman history, and has 
no conception of the great laws of life? 
What is the value to one in being able to 
chart the heavens and have not the slight- 
est conception of the life cycle of the sim- 
plest cell? If you would be educated, you 



26 MAKING THE GRADE 

must know life, from the simplest organ- 
ism to the most complex. 

You cannot have health unless you know 
Nature's laws and the principles upon 
which health depends. To be healthy you 
must live as the primitives lived. It is no 
mystery why the ancients lived to such 
great age. Put man in the environment of 
the patriarchs with the patriarchs' inherit- 
ance, and you will see that it is no uncom- 
mon thing for men to live a hundred years 
and still retain the bloom of youth, but you 
cannot live under present day conditions 
and reach that age. To be civilized under 
present conditions means, as a rule, an 
early grave. Midnight suppers, numerous 
cigarettes, high nerve tension, an over- 
loaded intestinal tract, high percentage of 
protein diet, with little physical exercise — 
all these are efficient tools for the under- 
taker and assure him of early employment. 

The human machine is spoiled in the 



MAKING THE GRADE 27 

making. When you start to take the grade 
in it your motor heats, your spark plug 
misses, your carburetor gums and won't 
work, you blow out a tire, then you are 
shunted to the side of the road, or you 
tumble back to the level from which you 
started and there you remain — couldn't 
make the grade ; you are an old worn-out, 
broken-down wreck with a sign pinned to 
you — ^^For Sale, Cheap'' — just like the 
wreckage of wagons and buggies that 
you see in blacksmith shops all over the 
country. 

A wave of pity sweeps over me every 
time I see a derelict, human or machine — 
^^ could not make the grade" is stamped 
all over such relics. Now, frankly, who is 
to blame for all these human misfits? Why 
cannot more than forty to fifty per cent of 
our youths between the ages of twenty-one 
and thirty-one stand a physical test for the 
army and come through? What is the 



28 MAKING THE GRADE 

matter? Where is the leak in the factory? 
Undoubtedly, most of it is due to ignorance 
of the great laws of life. Man does not like 
to imitate his animal ancestor. He wants 
to forget his kinship with the rest of the 
animal world. He wants to strut on life's 
stage and brag about his divine origin, but 
this conception of life makes the Devil 
laugh because his satanic majesty knows 
that ignorance is the greatest of all crimes, 
and ignorance of one's origin is the crime 
of all crimes. If you would be healthy, get 
back to first principles. Did you ever see 
an animal carrying around a coffee or a 
tea pot! Did you ever see an animal eat- 
ing a seven to fifteen course meal? Not 
much. An animal eats one, not over two 
kinds of food at a meal, drinks water or 
milk, and does not need a pepsin tablet to 
help digest it. Men are animals and must 
be treated as such and their life to some 



MAKING THE GRADE 29 



extent must be patterned after the animal 
existence if they would be healthy. 

Nothing is more pitiful than the old 
young man or woman. Just when life is 
really worth while, just when the goal 
is worth reaching, just when the real 
test comes, just when we strike the one 
grade, at the top of which lies the great 
object to be attained, then our machine 
breaks down and we go to the scrap heap. 
Pitiful! It is a tragedy! 

Compensation, immutable, unswerving 
and unchangeable, always gets in its work. 
Unless the bird uses its wings, it will soon 
forget how to fly ; unless you exercise, your 
muscles decay — compensation everywhere. 
You smoke, five, ten, fifteen, twenty ciga- 
rettes a day, you get a pleasurable sensa- 
tion, but you lose in nerve poise and ac- 
curacy. Drink alcoholics for stimulation 
or for the pleasure you derive from their 
influence, and you lose in bodily vigor and 



30 MAKING THE GRADE 

endurance. Eat heavily of highly seasoned 
food because it tickles your palate, and 
you suffer from autointoxication and lose 
your virile red-blooded punch. 

Become a hothouse plant and neglect ex- 
ercise, and you lose all physical endurance 
and ability to withstand the impact with 
the world. It takes a well-built machine to 
make the grades and you cannot test or 
know the value of a machine until the 
going gets hard. No one tests an auto- 
mobile on level roads. It takes the rocks 
and the hills to tell whether it has any 
endurance; and so it is with life. 

Live clean, get in close touch with Na- 
ture. Know from whence you came and 
whither you are going, get acquainted with 
your animal ancestry, and don^t be 
ashamed of them, and try to live without 
all the embellishments of civilization, and 
you will make the grades. This is no health 
primer. The writer does not intend that it 



MAKING THE GRADE 31 



should assist in diagnosing a diseased con- 
dition or effecting a cure where a disease 
exists, but it is hoped that the casual 
reader, in scanning its pages will become 
impressed with a suggestion here and 
there that may cause him or her to place a 
higher valuation on health and look at it 
as a vital necessity in making the grade. 

To prevent diseases is the great goal of 
modern medicine. Healthy individuals 
are the greatest asset of a state or a na- 
tion and too much importance cannot be 
given to the rearing of a race strong and 
virile, able and competent to climb the 
hills. 



CHAPTER III 

ENDURANCE 

T7NDURANCE is dependent upon a 
-■--' sound body and a determined will. 
There are many flabby wills housed in a 
physically sound body. When this is the 
case, there is little endurance; and, as a 
consequence, there is not much hill climb- 
ing for such an individual. 

By inheritance man is a laz}^ animal. 
Not many generations ago our ancestry 
worked only enough to obtain the neces- 
sary food to sustain life and an occasional 
fig leaf for a dress suit. Press of circum- 
stances made it imperative that he get out 
and hustle, but the cell life of today still 
harks back to the cell life of its yesterdays 
and most of us like to hunt the shady side 
of the street and loaf along. 

The Avill is the Captain of the Soul. 

32 



MAKING THE GRADE 33 

Without it man has no place in civilization 
and it takes a strong will to drive the 
human machine up the hot and dusty 
grades. ^^What kind of a motor do you 
use?'^ is the first question asked of the 
automobile salesman when he offers you a 
car. Experience teaches you that the value 
of a machine rests upon the stability, the 
accuracy, and the endurance of its motor. 
Beautiful upholstery, silver trimmings, 
musical horns, and noiseless rubber tires 
amount to nothing unless you have a motor 
that will run and is as sound as the heart 
of an oak that has defied the storms for, lo, 
these many years. So it is with man. You 
must have the will to do, else your good 
looks, your Chesterfieldian manners, your 
kindness of heart and your good intentions 
will avail you nothing. 

Your muscles may be as strong as Her- 
cules' and your limbs as powerful as 
Achilles \ but these are of no avail in the 



34 MAKING THE GRADE 

race of life unless they are driven by the 
motive power of an unconquerable, untir- 
ing will. A sound body and a well-trained, 
resolute will give the necessary endurance 
that puts one up and over the grade. Many 
a weak body has been made to accomplish 
wonders by a resolute, determined will. 
Undoubtedly few individuals realize the 
value of will power, and surely there are 
very few individuals today that appreciate 
will training as an asset in life. 

Psychology is the baby in the science 
family ; but it is growing more rapidly than 
Jack's bean stalk ever developed. An un- 
derstanding of this science dispels about 
all the mysteries that have clung to man 
since animal life was first cradled in the 
forests of antiquity. This science is the 
light that dispels all mysteries and shows 
man exactly what he is and what he can 
accomplish. 

To endure one must have a well-trained 



MAKING THE GRADE 35 

will and one which demands and receives 
obedience from the bodily functions and 
powers. How is the will to be trained so 
that it will endure? so that it will apply 
the lash and drive our bodies on? Wishing 
does not accomplish. If it did, life would 
be a hideous nightmare. The inertia of in- 
herited laziness can only be overcome by 
the stimulus of an untiring, well-directed 
will. Nothing is impossible where there is 
resolute purpose and physical health. No 
restraining hands are laid upon us save 
our own ; but the pity in life is that few, if 
any, of us ever realize the value of will and 
the part it plays until life is well nigh 
gone; and the majority of that eighty-five 
per cent of failures that are scrapped and 
junked never knew that standing by ready 
and willing to help was a power mightier 
than the old guard and more potential than 
the lurid lightning. What electricity has 
proved to be to the motive world, mil 



36 MAKING THE GRADE 

power is to the physical. Man today is 
stumbling along, working haphazardly, 
falling by the way, groping in the dark, 
running on a dead level, — all because he 
does not understand the great motive 
power, the great value of a well-directed, 
carefully-trained will, and this power lies 
within all. 

For millions of years the Niagara River 
poured its immeasurable gallons of water 
over the Falls, and man never realized 
that buried in this deluge was a power that 
would dispel the midnight darkness of a 
city and turn the spindles and the wheels 
of a commerce that could feed and clothe a 
million souls. So it is with the power of 
will. Men, women, and children are rush- 
ing over the great Niagaras of life, wasted, 
useless failures; while all the time there 
is a mighty power that would enable each 
and every one of them to rival in achieve- 
ment the wizards whose light and whose 



MAKING THE GRADE 37 

reason have been the guide posts of men 
through countless ages. 

You must endure if you would win, and 
to endure you must have a will that knows 
and understands. Steam and electricity 
are man's greatest servants; but, unless 
one is trained in the use of these powers, 
they are of no value. So it is with the 
Avill. Every individual of average intel- 
ligence is endowed with a will, but it is 
dormant throughout most of our lives be- 
cause we do not train and use it. 

A resolute will enabled John Paul Jones 
to make the grade when defeat seemed in- 
evitable. It made Washington the savior 
of personal liberty in the western world 
when all seemed lost, and it made Joffre 
victor at the Marne and saved Paris and 
the Eepublic of France when it looked as 
though nothing could stem the tide of 
German invasion. 

The ancients used to exhort their war- 



38 MAKING THE GRADE 

riors to be bold. It seems to me that the 
slogan of the man and woman of today 
should be: '^Endure, endure." 

It is pitiful, but nonetheless true, that 
most men and women are quitters. If not, 
then why so many failures ? Consult your 
statistics, commercial or professional. You 
will be appalled at the mortality. Take a 
class of boys, — we will eliminate the girls 
because they are not supposed to keep in 
the fight any longer than it is necessary to 
take on the vows of matrimony — after 
graduation, watch their careers. You will 
find that about one out of ten rises to any 
height. The others cannot make the 
grades. Their motors burn out, they have 
no endurance, and they fall by the way. 
Every man in the domain of commerce, or 
professional life, that has made the grade, 
has done it because he has had endurance. 
Of course, he became tired; of course, the 
way became long and the road dusty; but 



MAKING THE GRADE 39 

the power of endurance carried him on and 
victory was finally achieved. Now, why 
did these men endure? In analyzing this 
question you find the following solution: 
First, they had physical stamina ; they had 
a constitution that would stand the strain; 
and, secondly, they had a will power, 
trained and obedient, that drove them on. 

Now, you, my reader, no doubt, possess 
both of these. If not both, undoubtedly, 
you possess one, else you would not be scan- 
ning these pages. 

It lies within your power, unless you are 
a hopeless invalid, or a mental defective, 
to train yourself so that you can endure, 
so that you can make the grade; and, if 
you do not, then the fault lies with your- 
self, and not with your stars, that you are 
an underling. 



CHAPTER IV 

IMAGINATION 

TMAGINATION is of great assistance to 
-^ endurance. It is the stimulus that 
keeps one fighting on when nerve, muscle, 
and brain are tired. 

Physicians find it necessary at times to 
administer powerful stimulants to keep 
the fires of life from flickering out. A sur- 
geon 's armamentarium is never complete 
unless he has at his side a hypodermic, 
loaded with a powerful drug with which 
to stimulate his patient should the shock 
of the operation be too severe. Imagina- 
tion is just such a stimulus in making the 
grade. Anticipation is a great lure. It 
has cleared forests and built homes, irri- 
gated deserts and planted flower gardens, 
tunneled mountains and brought to light 
the gold and buried treasures hidden by 

40 



MAKING THE GRADE 41 

tlie convulsions of the earth in its child- 
hood days. It laid the Atlantic cable, thus 
enabling America to become the next door 
neighbor to Europe; and it put Dobbins' 
collar upon electricity, enabling man to 
send, by the feeble tick of an instrument, a 
wireless call that can be heard around the 
world. 

Ford anticipated the possibilities of the 
automobile as he ate his hamburger sand- 
wiches at midnight upon the streets of De- 
troit after spending hours experimenting 
with a car that he was afraid to try to run 
upon the streets during the day, and Antici- 
pation is the twin sister to Imagination. 

Some wiseacre said sometime, some- 
where, that all work and no play made Jack 
a dull boy. This philosopher stated one 
of the cardinal principles of life. Contin- 
uous climbs bring on fatigue and fatigue is 
the result of a poison created by the break- 
ing down of muscle tissue, occasioned by 



42 MAKING THE GRADE 

continuous exertion. It is during these 
deadly fatiguing spells on life's climb that 
Imagination and Anticipation get in their 
work. 

Every conqueror has at times been tired, 
so tired that life seemed not to be worth 
the living. Robert Bruce stumbled into a 
cave on the mountains of Scotland fatigued 
unto death and no doubt said to himself — 
^^Oh, what is the use? I'm so tired;" but 
the magic spider got in his work about this 
time and through the eye of imagination 
Bruce pictured himself leading an army to 
victory on his native hills. This picture 
sent him up the grade again and he climbed 
on until he reached its pinnacle. 

Great men grow tired just like the small, 
but the difference between the great and 
the small is just this: the great rests for a 
w^liile and then trudges on and still on; 
while the failure, when he stops to rest, 
never starts going again unless it be that 



MAKING THE GRADE 43 

the going is down the grade. Imagination 
is no more a divine gift than is it a di- 
vine gift for one to master different lan- 
guages by application. A powerful, well- 
trained imagination, just like a powerful, 
well-trained biceps, is the result of toil and 
effort. It is within the reach of anyone 
who has an average normal brain if they 
will pay the price to obtain it. 

It is just as natural to grow weary, tired, 
and discouraged at times as it is to be 
happy and hopeful; but the hill climbers 
are the ones who recover from the attacks 
of fatigue and discouragement and keep on 
climbing. Every day and every night 
sees them more resolute and more deter- 
mined. The failures are those who cannot 
recover from such attacks. 

One of the great lessons of life to learn 
is this: our fight is not directed against 
either gods or devils; we are fighting for 
a foothold in the world's affairs, and this 



44 MAKING THE GRADE 

achievement is contested only by our fel- 
lows and they are as weak as we. 

Nothing paints the sky quite so rosy, 
makes the birds sing quite so sweetly, or 
gives to the sunshine and the air quite so 
much vigor and charm as good health and 
a vivid imagination. This is a mighty good 
world; the only fault lies with ourselves. 
If you put water instead of gasoline in your 
tank you will never climb the hill; you 
won't even stand still; you'll retrograde so 
fast that when you strike the bottom you'll 
be buried in the mire. Now then, just put 
the cold water of discouragement, despair 
and hopelessness into the gas tank of life 's 
motor car and you are headed for the mud 
flats of dismal failure. A cold motor will 
not run. It takes warmth and the vital 
spark to get up motion. It is just this way 
with life. To make the grade you must 
keep your motor warm, the gas tank filled 



MAKING THE GRADE 45 

and your carburetors cleaned and bur- 
nished. 

The value of a republic lies in the fact 
that in it all men are free and equal. Eank, 
station, and prerogative are given alike to 
those who toil and strive for them. Under 
this form of government the hill climbers 
can go as far as they choose. Under these 
environments man has nothing to fight ex- 
cept himself, and he alone is responsible if 
the grades are not made. But imagination 
and anticipation are the spark plugs that 
have driven the human cars around the 
world. Again I repeat that our school 
system is faulty. I have never heard of a 
teacher advocating the establishing of a 
department given over to the cultivation 
of imagination. On the contrary you find 
them discouraging the boy or the girl who 
dares to dream, and in this respect let it 
be said that th^ majority of mothers and 
fathers are dream killers themselves. 



46 MAKING THE GRADE 

When a boy or girl shows a desire to dwell 
in their Italy and Greece filled with gods 
and temples, these selfsame mothers and 
fathers smother with ridicule and scorn the 
beginning fires that should be fanned into 
a flame. 

The motor is cracked in the making, the 
gasoline of life is diluted and turned into 
ice water. Then Mary or John turns turtle, 
^^Oh, what's the use,'' they say, ^^me for 
the bright lights, ' ' another car has slipped 
from its moorings and crashed to the bot- 
tom but the driver was not to blame. 

Making the grade is the great problem 
of life. It is the vital burning problem of 
every man and woman. All want to make 
it, and most, if not all, try, once, twice, and 
many several times; but ignorance, igno- 
rance of the great laws of the game, throws 
most of them back to the dead level; and 
many go on into the mire. 



CHAPTER V 

PATIENCE 

"pATIENCE means more than being able 
-*• to stick to a task nntil it is finished. 
A slave can do that, and often blind, un- 
reasoning patience keeps one at that which 
is unprofitable. But patience does mean 
having a philosophy that makes one under- 
stand that it is continuous, well-directed 
efforts that win; and, furthermore, patience 
must have an imaginative eye that sees the 
completed task and pronounces it well 
done. A mule can plod up and down the 
field. It makes no difference to the mule 
whether cotton or weeds are being plowed, 
but the plowman would have little patience 
if he did not feel that he would in season 
harvest more than a crop of weeds. 

To be patient, to keep plugging along, 
to keep climbing the hill, you must be in- 

47 



48 MAKING THE GRADE 

spired by, and buoyed up with, the hope 
of reaching the top. It is not patience, but 
hopelessness that keeps one working at a 
task that holds out absolutely no promise 
of ultimate successful completion. The pa- 
tience that helps carry one up the hill is 
the cheerful, hopeful kind. It is the kind 
that realizes the necessity of well-directed, 
intelligent, continuous efforts. Continu- 
ous failure is the great patience destroyer, 
but temporary failure is the sauce and the 
spice of life. Continuous success brings 
ennui and this condition is dangerous. He 
that thinketh he standeth had better take 
heed lest he fall, is mighty good logic, but 
patience becomes drudgery when hope has 
fled. The animal cell transmits to its 
progeny a restless, longing, upward-reach- 
ing instinct. This accounts for man's con- 
tinuous progress, and it also accounts for 
man's impatience. 
We crave change. The Bedouin of the 



MAKING THE GRADE 49 

desert cares nothing for a permanent abid- 
ing place. When this instinct manifests it- 
self, the millionaire migrates to his winter 
home among the Savannahs of the South 
and then to his summer home amid the 
snoAvfields of Maine. Change, change 
everywhere; that's life; but uncurbed this 
gives rise to a kind of impatience that 
brings failure to all of one's undertakings. 
One finds something subtle in an analysis 
of patience. Pushed to the extreme this 
human quality can soon become drudgery, 
and drudgery is death to accomplishment. 
A drudge gets nowhere unless it be to the 
cemetery. Healthy impatience is needed 
in climbing. It imparts zest to the game. 
It is the salt and spice needed to add the 
savory taste to the meats of life. But 
where is impatience to end, and patience to 
begin? Ah! there is the rub! There is 
where your finer judgment comes in. 
Youth is usually impatient because youth 



50 MAKING THE GRADE 

is restive under restraint. Probably it is 
for this reason that in the eyes of some it 
is a crime to be young. Youth does not ac- 
complish much, because, like the birds in 
the spring, it flits from tree to tree, trying 
to decide where it will build its permanent 
abode. 

Patience, like steam and electricity, must 
be understood before its great value can 
be appreciated, and like these two servants 
of man, it can become man's destruction 
if improperly handled. 

Self-restraint and self-control are close- 
ly akin to patience, but perfect self-control 
is not patience. Impatience is necessary 
to progress, but impatience exaggerated is 
self -destructive. Balanced rations are 
necessary in maintaining health; and bal- 
ance between impatience and patience is 
necessary in making the grade. Undoubt- 
edly it is for this reason that youth is un- 
reliable, because it takes experience to give 



MAKING THE GRADE 51 

one the necessary judgment, and experi- 
ence comes with years. 

A drill bites through the hardest steel 
because the drillmaster directs the point 
constantly against a given spot. It is need- 
less to comment upon the well-known story 
about the hare and the tortoise. Success 
everywhere is a vindication of the value of 
patience. Every grade that has ever been 
made and every hill that has been climbed 
has been done on account of patient bend- 
ing to the task in hand. 

It is a narrow line that sometimes 
separates success from failure. Many a 
hill has been almost climbed; but almost 
getting to the top is not getting there. 
Patience, and not drudgery, is the quality 
necessary to keep one everlastingly at it. 
Ability to endure the physical strain does 
not always mean patiently sticking to a 
task. Some of the most patient and hope- 
ful workers are not the strongest physi- 



52 MAKING THE GRADE 

cally. Many times a physically weak body 
is made to endure an enormous strain on 
account of the hopeful patience of the in- 
dividual and why not be patient and hope- 
ful in your climb? You are climbing to- 
ward a goal that Avill bring you success, 
and the right kind of success brings hap- 
piness. To achieve is a normal man's am- 
bition and he w^ants to achieve, because his 
success will make him find favor in some- 
one 's eyes. 

The love passion is the lodestar that 
points the way in most achievements. This 
statement may be disputed by many, but 
the cold light of analysis will prove that it 
is true. The love light has been, and will 
always be, man's prime activator. It has 
led him through the million years of de- 
velopment. It made him shed the scales of 
his reptilian ancestry and robbed him of 
the long tail with which his simian forefa- 
thers were blessed. It has driven him from 



MAKING THE GRADE 53 

a habitat among the trees to a palace on 
Riverside Drive; and from a tadpole, 
swimming and hopping through the 
marshes, to a palatial yacht, riding npon 
the blue waves of the southern seas. 
Love has done all this, and it will do even 
more for man. But patience must stay the 
hand that would rob man of his achieve- 
ments by quitting before the task is done. 
Patience matures the ear for harvest and 
imprints the blush of ripeness upon the 
cheek of the peach and covers it with down. 
This same patience has brought man up 
through animalism and savagery and made 
him the conqueror that he is today; but, like 
an enigma, this same patience can make a 
drudge out of the mightiest warrior and 
turn victory into the blackest defeat. Pa- 
tience, then, like imagination, must be 
trained ; and it must be well directed in the 
upward and never-ending climb. 



CHAPTER VI 

COURAGE 

/^^OWARDICE and ignorance are tlie 
^^ greatest of all human ills. Abolish 
these and civilization would advance so 
rapidly that a twin-six under strong gas 
could not keep up with it. They do more 
to stifle man, hamper progress, and spread 
poverty and disease than all other agencies 
combined. Cowardice is man's inheritance 
from his animal ancestry. When the rule 
of tooth and claw^ was supreme, the weaker 
was devoured by the strong. This condition 
gave birth to fear ; and the weak, acting un- 
der this stimulus, in their efforts to pre- 
serve life, fled when the strong appeared 
intent upon their kill. This self -preserva- 
tive instinct came with other animal inher- 
itances, but when the rule of reason suc- 
ceeded brutal force, and mentality was en- 

54 



MAKING THE GRADE 55 

throned, fear was so ingrained in man^s 
protoplasmic life that it takes education 
and training to eradicate it. All men are 
cowards, but reason and training can over- 
come this inherent weakness. Only the 
brave can win. A coward cannot progress. 
More of the fights in life are lost on ac- 
count of cowardice than from any other 
cause. Financiers will loan money to and 
back a man any time when it is known 
that he is not afraid. Perils become pleas- 
ures to the brave and dauntless; they are 
the spice of life and a life without thrills 
is no life at all. 

A coward cannot win because fear sti- 
fles initiative, paralyzes effort, and throt- 
tles ambition. It makes pygmies out of 
giants and renders a strong man as weak 
and helpless as a babe. Eeason is de- 
throned when Cowardice takes the scepter; 
then Logic gives way to Fallacy, and Chaos 
reigns. The coward is an object of pity. 



56 MAKING THE GRADE 

To him life is a misery to be endured be- 
cause it cannot be avoided. He cannot un- 
derstand how to enjoy the game. He is a 
bankrupt and a failure for all time. And 
after all it is so foolish to be a coward. 
Life is not so sweet that it transcends all 
virtue. I would rather die young as the 
brave die and leave a brave man's heritage 
to the world than to live a coAvard's life 
though it be prolonged until the end of 
time. Men live in deeds not years. One's 
value to the world is measured by what he 
accomplishes, by the service he renders to 
civilization, and not according to the 
length of time he may have lived. 

It takes a stout, brave heart to hew a 
new path, to climb a hill, to make a grade ; 
and it is necessary to train honestly and 
untiringly to overcome fear. Adults, both 
men and women, can be convicted before 
the bar for helping to make cowards. Chil- 
dren are hushed when they cry and are put 



MAKINa THE GRADE 57 

to sleep by being told that a bogyman will 
get them if they don't watch out, and these 
phantoms of childhood become real in time. 
Mothers and fathers, in their ignorance, 
prey upon the fear instinct of their chil- 
dren and control them through this medium 
because this club is easiest to wield. More 
children are beaten and bruised psychically 
in this way than physically. It takes time, 
patience, and courage to explain to a child- 
ish mind why this or that must not be done 
and it is easier to hurl a threat than to give 
an explanation. A mother among lower 
animals bites and slaps her young in repri- 
mand. The human mother bites and slaps 
her young in a psychic manner by promis- 
ing that dire and terrible things will hap- 
pen if they do not obey. One is supposed 
to be brutal, the other refined, but let it be 
said that muscle tissue when bruised re- 
pairs with much less danger of permanent 
injury than brain tissue when injured by a 



58 MAKING THE GRADE 

psychic trauma. Ignorance is the greatest 
of all crimes. It is the breeder of all 
crimes. Men lie, steal, forge, and commit 
murder on account of their ignorance of 
the great laws of compensation. They do 
not know that they are a related part in the 
great cosmos and that every time they 
work injury upon their fellow man they 
work it upon themselves. Light, more 
light, is the despairing cry of the scientist, 
because light, and light only, will save the 
world. 

Why must the average man attain the 
age of thirty-five to fifty before he finds 
himself, before he is squared away and 
ready to make his impress upon the world? 
The most logical answer to this question 
undoubtedly is this: it takes most men 
until that age to unlearn the erroneous 
things taught them by parents and teach- 
ers; to overcome the fears of childhood in- 
grained in them, and to learn what consti- 



MAKING THE GRADE 59 

tiites real life. When teachers and parents 
realize that success in life consists in being 
able to make the grade, more boys and 
more girls will be trained for hill climbers. 
At present it is enough to make angels 
weep to see the injustice heaped upon child- 
hood. The wonder is that even so high as 
five per cent of business and professional 
men become signal successes and reach the 
top of the grade. If Henry Ford built his 
cars as carelessly as ninety per cent of par- 
ents and teachers train those under them, 
the Ford factory would be closed, except 
to the owls and bats, in less than two years. 
Men pose as teachers who are as ignorant 
of the science of psychology as a babe at 
its mother's breast is ignorant of Caledo- 
nian history. Mothers and fathers who are 
as ignorant of the great psychic laws gov- 
erning life as an owl is ignorant of the 
principles of light are raising children, or 
trying to raise them. You cannot govern 



60 MAKING THE GRADE 

and you cannot teach unless you under- 
stand the power of this great psychic tide 
in a human life that ebbs and flows like the 
tide of the mighty ocean. Ignorance is the 
curse of the world. 

Ninety per cent of men and women, nor- 
mal in mind and healthy in body, can make 
the grade, can climb the hills if they are 
properly trained in childhood, and are 
taught the great laws of life. 

The greatest of all Avaste is that of 
human lives. Scientific medicine today is 
bending its every effort to conserve, to 
lengthen and to strengthen life. ^^ Prevent 
disease rather than cure if is the slogan, 
and the modern physician is trying to teach 
this. He knows the danger in the psychic 
trauma; he knows what it takes to climb 
the hill; he knows that the coward can 
never make the grade; and every^vhere he 
is trying to create better than he finds. 
Make our boys, our girls, our young and 



MAKING THE GRADE 61 

our middle-aged men and women brave and 
courageous, then we will have a race of hill 
climbers, a race that can make the grade. 



CHAPTER VII 

SELF-CONFIDENCE 

T^AITH in one's abilities lias removed 
mountains. Lack of this faith fills 
one's life with sloughs of despond. You 
cannot climb successfully unless you have 
unbounded confidence in your ability to 
reach the top. Life is one constant succes- 
sion of suggestions and life is bent in ac- 
cordance with the trend of these sugges- 
tions. 

Self-confidence is an auto-suggestion 
that you have the ability to win, that your 
ship is staunch enough to weather the 
storm, that your motor is strong enough 
to climb the hill. If you lack this requisite 
to success, you might just as well get on a 
sidetrack and content yourself with watch- 
ing the other fellow pass by. Lack of con- 
fidence is deadly to the success germ. Self- 

62 



MAKING THE GRADE 63 

confidence is termed nerve in some. ^^He 
has the nerve to win" is frequently said 
about the man who dares opposition, who 
defies oppression, who challenges obstacles; 
but self-confidence is a better term. This 
simply means that one has faith in one's 
undertaking and confidence in one's abil- 
ity to win. 

Confidence begets confidence, repetition 
gives birth to habits, and habits rule men. 
When you get the success habit you have 
won the victory of life. 

Men have toiled and lost because they 
toiled half-heartedly. They had no con- 
fidence in their undertaking, they put an 
icepack on their motor and then could not 
understand why they could never get up 
any speed. Self-confidence begets enthu- 
siasm and hope kindles the fires of deter- 
mination and builds a palace instead of a 
hut. 

The world's great accomplishments have 



64 MAKING THE GRADE 

come about because a man had implicit 
confidence in his undertaking and fired the 
confidence of his fellow man until it flamed 
as brightly as his own. Columbus knew 
that by sailing westward he could reach 
the Indies and he told his story with such 
enthusiasm that Isabelle caught the vision 
and stripped her jewels from neck and 
arms and cast them at the adventurer's 
feet. Keed, Carroll, and Lazar were con- 
fident that the yellow fever germ was car- 
ried by the mosquito. They were so con- 
fident that this was true that they bared 
their own arms to the sting of the mos- 
quito previously fed upon the blood of a 
yellow^ fever victim; subsequent results 
proved their correctness and ever since 
these experiments Avere made the South 
has smiled in security, serene in the knowl- 
edge that never again can this grim mes- 
senger of death invade her land. 
Morse knew that an alphabet of dots and 



MAKING THE GRADE 65 

dashes could be worked out so that elec- 
tricity could be put in chains and do man's 
bidding. Today every message that spats 
its wireless way around the world is a vin- 
dication of his idea. 

Turn anywhere, look down time's corri- 
dor, and you find that the men have won 
who knew that their message was correct 
and true. They first convinced themselves 
and then convinced the world. You can 
lay a match with perfect security beside a 
train load of powder; so long as the match 
is not ignited the powder is perfectly safe 
from explosion, but light the match and 
you rock the world. You will never do 
anything, accomplish anything, or get any- 
where until you light your match; but 
when your own torch starts burning, you 
have a chance to ignite the world. 

Here again our educational system is at 
fault. Boys and girls are penned in a room 
twenty feet square and are told about the 



66 MAKING THE GRADE 

abstruse problems of geometry or the in- 
tricacies of a language that lost all value 
after the light of the Eoman empire ceased 
to burn; but there is never a word said to 
these embryo men and women that theirs 
is the hand that controls their destiny, that 
in their keeping is a pearl of great price, 
that self-confidence, nurtured, trained, de- 
veloped, will prove the lamp that lights the 
universe. The crime for which the 
twentieth century will be accused is its 
mistakes in education. A man here and 
there gets the so-called secrets of success, 
he stumbles by chance or otherwise upon 
the great laws that make him win; and he 
uses this influence to further his power 
over his fellows. Carnegie caught it and 
then the lurid glare from his steel furnaces 
painted the midnight skies; but he has 
made a dismal failure in his efforts to send 
this message ringing throughout the world. 
Almost anyone can read. Look around you 



MAKING THE GRADE 67 

in the street cars and you see everyone 
reading; and while they read, they are on 
the way to have their necks collared and 
their wrists clasped in handcuffs by the 
man who knows. We do not need readers 
only; w^e need thinkers; — ^men and women 
trained to think for themselves, trained to 
be independent and self-confident. 

Eockefeller is a public benefactor. His 
educational scheme would be complete if 
he would only add to the great institution 
that bears his name, a department where 
teachers could be trained in psychology, 
the science of conduct, the science of know- 
ing yourself, and then send these teachers 
out to instruct men and women how to de- 
velop confidence and how to know them- 
selves. Few men can think. Most all can 
read; but it is the thinker who does things. 
Look at Germany today. A coterie of 
scholars have done the thinking for eighty 
million souls. In turn for this thinking, 



68 MAKING THE GRADE 

many have been willing to fight and die. 
Now the conflagration, started when the 
match was struck by some unknown 
Servian, is lighting up the world, and 
America has shuffled her cards, dealt out 
a hand, and sits in. Self-confidence 
has swayed the scepter over man and 
over his animal ancestry from the spawn- 
ing time of Creation. It has lighted all 
the intellectual fires that have burned 
upon the hilltop of achievement, and this 
same self-confidence will go on to victory 
when all other human qualities have lain 
down to die. Confidence can be the gift of 
all. It is the Geni standing by ready 
to grant man^s every wish, but it 
must be recognized, it must be nurtured 
and it must be trained. This quality puts 
men over the grade and up the hill and 
gives them the right to conquer. 



CHAPTER VIII 

OPTIMISM 

QUNSHINE is essential to life. Disease 
^ and crime breed and grow where there 
is darkness. A hopeless individual is al- 
ready defeated. The poison has entered 
his soul and paralyzed his initiative. Pes- 
simism has crowded the lower rnngs of 
life's ladder and gives plenty of room to 
those who would go to the top. 

Optimism is a state of mind, but it is 
more contagious than the measles. Like a 
little leaven, it leaveneth the whole, but 
this quality is necessary to anyone who 
succeeds in making the grade. All success- 
ful men are optimists. If they were not, 
they could not succeed. It is probable that 
some individuals who revel in pessimism 
have reached the top; but, like barnacles, 

69 



70 MAKING THE GRADE 

they have ridden up fastened to the back 
of the other fellow. 

Jim Hill was optimistic with reference 
to the future of the Northwest. To him 
that empire was capable of being converted 
into the granary of the world. He believed 
in its future. In his imagination he saw 
fields of grain waving golden in the sun; 
he saw a railroad, reaching across the for- 
est, over the mountain, through the vale, 
on and still on until it touched the tidewater 
of Puget Sound. He believed in the North- 
west and made the Northwest what it is 
today. He was optimistic and his opti- 
mism enabled him to make the grade. 

The Christian Science church has 
climbed the hill because its leaders and 
teachers are optimists. In this respect it 
is so far ahead of other denominations that 
the orthodox churches can scarcely distin- 
guish the tail light on the Eddy machine, 
and as the climb still goes on, the distance 



MAKING THE GRADE 71 

between these two organizations will in- 
crease. 

Healthy, vigorous, normal men and 
women want to be, and are, optimistic ; but 
some killjoy comes along on a bright day 
and says to Molly or John, ^^Yon are look- 
ing badly, don't you think the world is 
lost? Isn't it terrible how late that Jones 
girl stays out with her beaux? Did you 
know that Jim PoUywog has infantile 
paralysis and all the children on this hloch 
are in dangerV\ Goodbye to John or 
Molly's sunshine. They have been hit a 
solar plexus blow by some old dyspeptic 
who should have been confined as a public 
nuisance long ago. And thus the world 
goes on. It is easier to condemn than to 
praise, easier to kick a ball down hill than 
to push one up. 

Mrs. Eddy was a good psychologist, so 
are the homeopathic physicians. One knew 
that the world would rather be happy than 



72 MAKING THE GRADE 

sad, the other knew that people would 
rather take a small sugar-coated pill than 
a spoonful of slough water as bitter as gall. 
If the Protestant churches do not abolish 
the cowl, the long face, glowing fires and 
roasting irons, the Christian Scientists will 
soon have the odds so much in their favor 
that churches everywhere will be turned 
into reading rooms and ministers will be 
readers of the new Bible. 

Pessimism is a sign of disease. When 
the world is black to you, your alimentary 
tract has become the breeding ground for 
a million germs that have poisoned you 
and obstructed your vision. Sane, healthy 
individuals never wear a grouch. Men and 
women are made invalids and criminals be- 
cause they lose hope. You try to dam the 
ebb and flow of the ocean's tide and you 
court destruction. Try to dam the great 
psychic tide in a human life and you 
are undertaking something equally as dan- 



MAKING THE GRADE 73 

gerous. Man was born to be happy, to be 
healthy, to rule, to win, and to love. 
Thwart any of these laws and you beget 
disease, you beget sorrow, you make men 
cowards and bring on premature death. 
And, after all, what is the use to sorrow? 
Life flows on in its remorseless way, in- 
dependent of any thought or act of ours. 
Men are born, marry, and die, irrespective 
of whether you and I smile or frown ; but 
sorrow kills, it paralyzes and renders you 
inert. 

Crile, the great Cleveland surgeon, has 
demonstrated that sorrow reduces the 
chance of a patient's recovery from an 
operation more than one-half, and fear of 
an operation literally kills. Sorrow, grief, 
pessimism, have made serfs of men and 
women. Banish this somber triad and you 
will add fifty per cent to the longevity of 
life, you will double the value economically 
of every man and woman, and you will in- 



74 MAKING THE GRADE 

crease the percentages of success a thou- 
sand fold. 

Henry Ford knows life. He may have 
started only as a mechanic and made his 
wealth out of things mechanical, but some- 
where he caught the whisperings from hu- 
man hearts and he has interpreted these 
whisperings correctly. He knows what is 
necessary to make efficient workmen and 
that in accordance with the efficiency of his 
workmen does he progress. 

A living wage, hope of independence in 
old age, hygienic surroundings, love and 
kindness, — this is the slogan in the Ford 
factory and this is the Golden Eule of life. 

Be an optimist if you would make the 
grade — ^not a foolish optimist, not the kind 
that would have you mix matches and gaso- 
line, or the kind that would have you send 
a babbling baby girl to fight a bull, but the 
healthy, sensible, capable kind that makes 
you see the glint of sunshine everywhere 



MAKING THE GRADE 75 

and the flowers that bloom along the way. 
This spirit will put red blood in yonr veins, 
will put determination in your heart and 
will make you make the grade. 



CHAPTER IX 

FAITH IN THE SUCCESS OF YOUR 
UNDERTAKING 

"V/'OU must believe in yourself and in the 
■*" service that you are capable of ren- 
dering to the world if you would win. 
You must convince yourself, first, that you 
are capable of making the grade, and with 
the saturation of every fiber in your being 
with this belief success will come. If you 
want to fire your fellow man with enthusi- 
asm and the power to win, pat that fellow 
on the back and say, ^^Old man, you are a 
winner, I believe in you, you are doing a 
great work, just keep on striving, hew to 
the line, fight on, and victory is yours.'' 
If we could have words like this repeated 
to us frequently, honestly, conscientiously, 
and enthusiastically, the business mortal- 
ity of the world would be lessened. 

76 



MAKING THE GRADE 77 

It is a pity that so many people belong 
to the icewater brigade and keep their 
tank full all the time. It's a crime to dis- 
courage any individual. It takes the zest 
out of life and makes sorrow breed a crop 
where happiness should reign. But man is 
envious. Your neighbor slips on the grade, 
falls back or gets ditched to one side. You 
come chugging along on a good head of 
steam and seem to be making the grade, 
and this envious brother slips some water 
in your gasoline, or puts a tack in your tire 
and soon you join him on the roadside and 
thus the failure family grows. 

Do not expect plaudits from the world 
as a free-will offering. If you want recog- 
nition, you must go out and fight for it and 
you must wring it with the hands of toil 
from an unwilling populace. The world 
will pay its tribute of respect for signal 
service, but it never applauds the loser. 
You must win to find favor in your neigh- 



78 MAKING THE GRADE 

bor's eye. While it is true that the world 
will not applaud you and cheer you on in 
your fight, the fact remains that you can 
applaud and cheer yourself. 

Perfect faith in your ultimate success is 
the greatest of all tonics and it is the tonic 
that is constantly at your service. Every 
man has a double ; there are two beings on 
hand all the time — the conscious and the 
subconscious. The subconscious wants to 
help but the conscious man is ignorant of 
his ally and goes through life on one cylin- 
der. We sleep and dream. In our dreams 
the subconscious is in the ascendancy be- 
cause our conscious self is then uncon- 
scious. 

Auto-suggestion is our means of com- 
munication with the subconscious mind. 
Through this medium we keep in constant 
touch with our ally and we need never be 
afraid of its deserting us. The men who 
have made the most pronounced success 



MAKING THE GRADE 79 

are the men who use this power. Con- 
sciously or unconsciously it is called to 
their assistance and it has never been 
known to fail. If you need convincing evi- 
dence of this, talk to a man that is 
pursuing some great idea and has im- 
plicit faith in his ultimate success. 
You soon catch his spirit and shortly be- 
come an ardent supporter of his opinions. 
His faith convinced you, but first his faith 
convinced himself. You simply caught 
some of the warmth with which his spirit 
was all aglow. This quality is that which 
distinguishes the man of achievement from 
the common herd. All men are capable of 
developing this power ; but like the gold in 
the mountain side, it is hidden from view 
and can only be utilized by digging and 
working to bring it to the surface. The 
road to success is as plain as the Lincoln 
Highway, but men are blind. Indolence, 
pleasure, procrastination, ill health, cow- 



80 MAKING THE GRADE 

ardice, and all the negative powers of 
darkness have hidden the light of achieve- 
ment from their eyes. The populace sees 
one of its fellow men climb over its head 
by sheer merit. It tries to pull him back 
to its level, but he still goes on and makes 
the grade. Instead of subjecting this man 
to the cold light of analysis and finding 
out why he won, the crowds take up all 
their time in condemning him, and envying 
his achievement; but the same rules that 
this man followed are open to the crowd, 
they can choose the same path, and 
they can achieve the same as he. Suc- 
cess never locked and barricaded its doors 
against man. It is simply fleet of foot and 
challenges in a race of endurance and 
pluck, and victory has always been 
awarded to the strong. 

Believe in yourself, know you will win, 
and the first great barrier has been over- 
come. Lack of faith in your work is a hu- 



MAKING THE GRADE 81 

man handcuff and chains you tight and 
solid to the rocks of dismal failure. No 
wonder Christ said that if you had suf- 
ficient faith you could move mountains. 
This is literally true and every successful 
man is a living example that such is the 
case. It is enough to make angels weep to 
see the lack of faith that the majority of 
men and women display in their work. 
Labor unions are a first-class protection 
against class oppression hut they fall short 
of the mark that they could reach if they 
would do some educational work among 
their members. Personally, I am for prop- 
erly conducted labor unions. There is no 
use trying to deny the fact that man is in- 
herently selfish and domineering. With- 
out labor unions, many employers would 
make peons and serfs of their employees, 
but labor leaders are blind to the great 
laws of evolution and to the great princi- 
ples of service. Labor unions have trained 



82 MAKING THE GRADE 

men, not educated them. The educated 
know they must serve their work if they 
would have their work serve them; faith 
in your work, love of it and implicit faith 
in its future is the greatest service you can 
give to the business of life. 

The hope of mankind lies in love and 
work. When God drove man out of the 
Garden of Eden and made him earn his 
living by the sweat of his brow, the dawn 
of a new day was ushered in. There would 
have been no progress if Adam and Eve 
had remained in that mortal Paradise ; life 
would have become burdensome, and death 
a thing desired, because it would cut short 
an ennui that is more terrible than death. 

Work is the crowning achievement of 
man. Labor and love are the dual forces 
that have mastered all difficulties, climbed 
all the hills, and made all the grades over 
which civilization has trod in its upward 
and onward march. 



CHAPTER X 

POISE 

T> ALANCE is necessary in all things, 
-"^ Nature demands and preserves an 
equilibrium. Get out of balance and you 
are in danger of a fall. A well-ordered and 
successful life consists of being able to pre- 
serve your poise, in keeping in tune and in 
harmony with nature. Insanity is caused 
by the loss of mental balance and failure 
comes to a life that is not well poised. It 
is amusing, though pitiful, to see the 
energy wasted by raving over the weather. 
^^This is the hottest day I ever experi- 
enced'' is hurled at you a dozen times dur- 
ing the morning by some fuming, fussy 
neurotic when a glance at the thermometer 
would convince one that the temperature 
is about normal. ^^I am dead tired, utterly 
worn out, worked to death,'' is said over 

83 



84 MAKING THE GRADE 

and over again, day after day by individ- 
uals who are perfectly normal in every 
way except for lack of poise. Haste, ex- 
travagant statements, fussing and fuming 
does nothing but burn up your gasoline. 
You stand still all the time but your engine 
is running at top speed. 

Mrs. Eddy scored her greatest hit with 
the Christian Science religion when she 
made as its chief tenet the abolishment of 
worry. If you want to see a satisfied in- 
dividual and one who knows that every- 
thing is all right, you must meet a Simon- 
pure Christian Scientist. It is quite a 
beautiful religion and one that seems to 
serve the purpose. 

An engine needs a governor; without 
this its value is nil. Instead of serving 
man it destroys. The same is true of life. 
Lack of poise, lack of perfect control of 
our emotions, lack of order and equanimity, 
and life becomes chaos; nothing is accom- 



MAKING THE GRADE 85 

plished, all the energy and efforts needed 
in climbing, in making the grades, are 
burned up while we stand stock still. 
^^Am I my brother's keeper f can well be 
answered in the affirmative. Life is so 
interrelated that every individual is a cog 
fitting into a neighboring wheel. Econom- 
ic loss, inefficiency, waste and destruc- 
tion are felt by those living far and away 
from the immediate scene. 

A parent laughs at the childish tantrum, 
but this mental gyration is burning a path 
of destruction across that child's mind 
that will cause misery, suffering, and fail- 
ure. It is easier to laugh than to repair, to 
threaten than to explain, and the march of 
ignorance goes on. Anger burns up a mil- 
lion tons of human energy and leaves noth- 
ing but ashes that blight and wither every 
object that they may touch. What a pity 
that self-restraint is not featured more and 
more in the home, in the schoolroom, and 



86 MAKING THE GRADE 

in the marts of trade and commerce. A 
man or woman who is composed nnder all 
conditions is the bulwark of civilization. 
Perfect poise could have prevented all 
wars, would thin the ranks of the legal 
profession, the members of which fatten 
upon the fights and bickerings of their fel- 
low men, and would close the doors of 
nearly all, if not quite all, the sanatoriums 
and asylums in this country. Nervous 
prostration is on the increase. The coun- 
try hillsides are being dotted with institu- 
tions where the neurotic, the hysteric, and 
the unbalanced assemble for treatment 
and for re-education; all caused from lack 
of poise, lack of a governor to properly 
regulate life, to harmonize it with the laws 
of nature by which all things came into ex- 
istence and by which they must be ruled. 
What a pleasure it is to meet an individual 
of perfect poise, not a prude, but a man or 
a woman that understands life and the laws 



MAKING THE GRADE 87 

of living. Calm, courageous, hopeful, pa- 
tient, determined, never losing sight of the 
goal, the person with poise moves on. He 
lives one day at a time and tries to make 
every minute of the present count. No 
time is spent in idle romancing on what the 
future may bring to him and the past 
with its mistakes and its sorrows is forgot- 
ten. Right now, the contact point with 
the past and the future is his chief concern 
and he makes the present the golden mo- 
ment of opportunity. Such an individual 
is headed straight toward the Goal of Suc- 
cess. He may be halted, but such an inter- 
ruption will be only temporary. His 
great business in life will go on and he will 
get to the top. 

Most, if not all, the successes in life are 
those individuals with poise. There 
are rare cases where this principle is in- 
grained in the individual early in life and 
then we have the early successes. Occa- 



88 MAKING THE GRADE 

sionally you see the bank president, the 
congressman, the governor of a state or 
the president of some mighty corporation 
who has broken all precedents and 
achieved the goal at thirty to thirty -five. 
These individuals were early trained in 
self-mastery, either by their teachers or 
by themselves, but such instances are rare. 
Most men who win arrive after they out- 
grow the error taught them by their blind 
leaders. This, no doubt, is the reason why 
more than half of a life is spent before one 
finds one's self and evolves a correct phi- 
losophy of life. 

The God of Failure must grin every time 
he takes account of his human chattels. 
Worse than sheep do men and women trail 
a leader or a precedent. Judges render 
their decisions in accordance with the de- 
cision of some judge preceding them. 
Business is conducted by men today like 
their ancestors conducted it a quarter of a 



MAKING THE GRADE 89 

century ago. Physicians are treating cases 
like they imagine textbook writers treat 
them and thus the procession continues. 
The eighty-five per cent who fail are the 
trailers. They never work out their own 
methods of procedure, they never think 
for themselves. Lack of poise, lack of sta- 
bility of purpose make them a weathercock, 
to be blown about by every varying wind. 
A ship must be held to its course if it ever 
reaches the harbor. The pilot never takes 
his hand off the wheel. Through shallows 
•and in deep currents, he threads his way 
on and still on. If he does not follow these 
fixed unvarying laws of navigation he soon 
brings destruction to himself, his cargo, 
and his passengers. Every man or woman 
is the pilot on his or her ship down the 
Eiver of Time. They must steer carefully 
and be at the wheel constantly. Indecision, 
impatience, cowardice means loss of con- 
trol and then you are on the rocks. 



90 MAKING THE GRADE 

Perfect balance, careful judgment, and 
an understanding of values gives one poise 
and enables the voyage to be made with- 
out mar or mishap. Training for poise is 
one of the great businesses of life. In this, 
as in everything else that is worth while, it 
is found that eternal vigilance is the price 
of success. You cannot maintain poise and 
neglect your training any more than an 
athlete can keep in physical condition and 
neglect exercise. But poise can be at- 
tained and kept. Its maintenance means 
much and it is of inestimable value in 
making the grade. 



CHAPTER XI 

CORRECT ESTIMATION OF VALUES 

npHERE is both a science and an art in 
-■■ the correct estimation of values. It 
takes training and mature judgment to 
pick the false from the true, and there is 
a fine art in the application of values to the 
things in life that are worth while. 

It is easy for one to fall into the error 
of thinking values are relative, except 
those standardized by mathematical pre- 
cision. Perspectives of value may vary, 
but the inherent value remains irrespective 
of whether an article be judged by one 
competent to pass an opinion on its worth 
or by a niere tyro and the value of those 
things in life that assist in making the 
grade remain fixed and definite, it makes 
no difference through whose eyes they are 
looked upon. 

Industry has a definite value in the mak- 

91 



92 MAKING THE GRADE 

ing of a success in life. The hill climber 
knows this and his constant application is 
one of the reasons for his continuous prog- 
ress. The dilettante has no estimation as 
to the value of industry ; to him work is a 
burden to be carried only when stern ne- 
cessity forces him to it, but the value of 
industry remains and the understanding of 
it brings success to the industrious one. 
Honesty has fixed and definite values, that 
must be understood. The man of integrity 
knows that a successful life is based upon 
honesty, and he strives to make this a cor- 
ner stone in the structure that he builds. 
The fact that the less honorable individual 
fails to take into account this feature and 
builds his house upon the sand does not de- 
tract one jot or tittle from the intrinsic 
worth of honesty. The value of patience, 
imagination, self-confidence, health, truth, 
and honesty of purpose remains the same, 
and will always be fixed and definite; it 



MAKING THE GRADE 93 

makes no difference what your estimation 
of them may be. 

A yardstick measures thirty-six inches. 
If one looks at a string that is thirty-six 
inches in length and says that it is only 
thirty-four, the thirty-six inches still re- 
main; the value is not lost because some 
individual underestimated it. 

A correct understanding of values that 
touch the great principles of life is an ab- 
solute necessity in making the grade. 
Your taste may differ from that of your 
neighbor, your likes and your dislikes may 
be entirely at variance, but all must agree 
on the worth of the cardinal factors that 
constitute a successful life. 

Pleasures have a great value. The 
esthetic must play a part in making the 
grade, but an incorrect value placed upon 
pleasures may bring about one ^s utter ruin. 
Narcotics, depressants, and various medi- 
cines have a value, but a misunderstanding 



94 MAKING THE GRADE 

of these values may cause them to assume 
the role of a destroyer. To judge correct- 
ly, to know values and to estimate their 
importance in building the fabric of life 
is one of the fine points in climbing the hill. 

The great problem constantly coming up 
is how can one interpret values correctly 
and get a true conception as to their worth. 
Careful analysis will enable one to detect 
the false from the true, the counterfeit 
from the genuine, and such an analysis is 
always possible. 

A good engineer can tear down his ma- 
chine and build it all over again, or he can 
take the object in concrete and reduce it to 
a pile of scraps. Analyzing one of lifers 
problems reduces by half the difficulties 
encountered. Tear down the stone wall 
that impedes your progress; you may not 
be able to overcome it en masse; but take 
it down piece by piece and you will soon 
have it leveled to the ground. 



MAKING THE GRADE 95 

Nothing is impossible to the man or the 
woman who can correctly judge values. 
Most individuals exaggerate. It seems to 
be impossible to form an absolutely cor- 
rect conception of what a thing really is 
worth. In business most men deceive 
themselves as to the real condition of their 
affairs. Any banker will tell you that he 
will discount from one-third to one-half 
the reported net worth of any commercial 
statement that is not furnished by a certi- 
fied public accountant. Most professional 
men will express themselves on some scien- 
tific point without being familiar with the 
absolute facts in the case. Incorrect con- 
ception of values keeps one headed toward 
the rocks. Water is necessary to satisfy 
your thirst, but it never would propel a 
gasoline motor car. Its value as water can- 
not be questioned, but you get in trouble 
when you give it an undue value in think- 
ing it will run your machine. Inflated 



96 MAKING THE GRADE 

values have brought on most of the world's 
financial crises and they cause many of the 
personal failures. Habits are formed on 
account of the value that we place upon 
certain things. The young man gets a taste 
of champagne suppers and bridge parties. 
In his estimation of things material, they 
have great worth. He devotes more time 
to them than he can spare and money that 
is not his. In time the false values that he 
placed upon these things bring about his 
failure and the complete shattering of his 
life. Another individual underestimates 
the value of honesty, of integrity, of truth ; 
he holds the cardinal factors in life as being 
of no value and he disregards their tenets. 
In time his reputation is gone; he has vio- 
lated all usages of ethics and is a moral 
bankrupt, if not a fugitive from outraged 
society. You cannot climb unless you cor- 
rectly judge the values of those things that 
constitute the warp and the woof of a sue- 



MAKING THE GRADE 97 

cessful life. You may run on the dead level 
of life and get by with a false conception 
of values, but just as soon as you start to 
make the grade you are lost. 

The pity of so many lives is that so much 
time is consumed in arriving at a concep- 
tion of what is true and what is false. The 
fires of youth burn hotly. It is hard to 
keep them in bounds. Pleasures lure and 
charm and hide the pitfalls. Values are 
over- and underestimated, and it is hard to 
separate the false from the true, but when 
values are once well established, then the 
road straightens out and the upward climb 
becomes easier. 



H 



CHAPTER XII 

HONESTY OF PUEPOSE 

ONESTY is an effort to know the 
truth, to avoid error. There are 
fixed and definite principles of ethics that 
must be followed to win. A house erected 
without proper regard being given to the 
rules governing balance and resistance 
will fall to the ground. A machine that 
is constructed without due consideration 
being paid to the laws governing 
mechanics will not do the work intended 
for it by its designer; and a life that is 
built without due consideration being 
paid to the fixed and immutable laws of 
truth and honesty will fail. You cannot 
slough your human machine in the making 
and then expect it to stand up under the 
grilling test in life's endurance race. You 
must build four square, you must give serv- 
ice plus. 

98 



MAKING THE GRADE 99 

An artist paints a picture and weaves 
into its colors his very soul. It takes 
months and years to complete it, but it is 
true and tells an honest story and this pic- 
ture lives for all time. Another painter 
makes a daub, sells it for a trifle, and this 
soon finds a resting place on some forgot- 
ten wall. 

The pyramids and obelisks of Egypt have 
withstood the decaying power of time for 
centuries. Their builders and the race to 
which the builders belonged have long since 
crumbled into dust and today are known 
only through the pages of sacred history, 
but their handiwork remains because it was 
honestly done. Business physicians have 
tried to work out a list of mortality sta- 
tistics. They do postmortems by the thou- 
sands and then publish their findings to the 
world, but it seems to me that back of all 
the gruesome facts they bring to light is a 
reason that transcends all. 



100 MAKING THE GRADE 

Modern civilization means an artificial 
life, and artificialness means sham, and 
sham is dishonesty. Into the warp and 
woof of most men's lives there creeps some- 
thing that is not just square, that does not 
ring just true. You do not have to be a 
deadbeat to be dishonest, you can cut the 
corners in your business life in a thousand 
ways and not violate a statutory law, but 
every time you cut a corner and shade your 
fellow man in a transaction, you violate one 
of the laws of success and you pay the price 
thereby. 

Service plus is the rule of the game if 
you would win. That employee who filches 
an hour's time is doing the greatest injury 
to himself. That employer who tries to 
add an extra dividend to his earnings by 
wringing it from the lives of his employees 
is hurting no one so much as himself. He 
may add to his bank account, but he loses 
in fineness and character those things that 



MAKING THE GRADE 101 

soar in value far above the worth of gold. 
A high sense of honor must be cultivated. 
One must not lose sight of his animal an- 
cestry and the primitive rule of tooth and 
claw. Ethics is the result of reason's 
rule and transcends brutal force. Forget 
this principle, blot out this light, and civil- 
ization is nothing but a veneer, is nothing 
but a pawn with which the brutally strong 
can play at will. 

Honesty protects the weak" against ag- 
gression, it subdues the animal instincts, it 
respects human right irrespective of 
whether those rights are backed up with 
bustling bayonets and big guns. It is the 
cordon of defense thrown about the weak. 
It is more than a scrap of paper. The train- 
ing for honesty in life is like the making of 
a superb machine. You must build care- 
fully and in harmony with truth. The more 
care and attention you give to it, the finer 
the product. 



102 MAKING THE GRADE 

There is not enough emphasis given in 
our schools to ethics. There is not enough 
attention paid to it in our homes. Honor 
should be impressed upon the life of a child 
from its babyhood, not fear but honor, and 
an example of honor should be set before 
it and an atmosphere of honor should sur- 
round it in the home. How can you expect 
a boy to be four square with the world when 
he sees his father and mother do unclean 
things in their contact with their fellow 
men? And let it be said here that childish 
minds are quick to grasp the false, much 
quicker than they are given credit for being 
able to do, and they do not forget. An im- 
pression made on a child mind lives for all 
eternity. Like stain upon the snow, it re- 
mains until life melts and fades away. 
Many a vicious life is started from impres- 
sions made in childhood and many a 
wrecked machine is due entirely to poor 
workmanship in the making. You cannot 



MAKING THE GRADE 103 

build false and run a winner's race. The 
great laboratory of the human soul tests 
all things, and by these tests one stands or 
falls. 

Nature sets a good example. She always 
rings true, and what man gives to Nature, 
she in turn gives back to him. Give the 
world loyal, loving, worth-while, square 
and honest service and you will be re- 
warded in proportion to what you give. 

Jesus gave utterance to a basic truth 
when he said, ' ' Give, and it shall be given 
unto you, ' ^ but let us understand that this 
must apply to the broad principles of life 
and not to some sickly sentimentalist's plea 
for aid to some pet cause. Give the world 
the best you have in an honest effort to 
serve your work, your family, and civiliza- 
tion; and the world will give back to you 
in kind. 

If you pour muddy water into a pitcher, 
you will pour muddy water out again. 



104 MAKING THE GRADE 

Slight and you will be slighted. Give and 
yon will be given nnto. 

Life is not a thing of chance. Success or 
failure is not accidental. There is no such 
thing as luck. Mankind was cursed when 
this word was born. Its false hopes have 
lulled men and women into an unconscious 
security or into a hopeless condition for 
ages. ^^ What is the use, my luck is against 
me/' has been the nightshade grasped in 
many bruised and bleeding hands as the 
hopeless one expired. ^^My luck will pro- 
tect me" has been the insane cry of many a 
reckless voyager as he drifted on toward 
the Cyclopean rocks. There is no mystery 
in success. The road to achievement is well 
charted. It has been trodden by countless 
feet, but it is straight and narrow and per- 
mits of no short cuts. Build every day like 
the Egyptians built their pyramids ; cut and 
polish every stone. Eun square with the 
world and you will have no complaints to 



MAKING THE GRADE 105 

make. Give your best to the world and the 
world will give back her best to you. Pour 
clear water into your pitcher of life and the 
pitcher will return clear water to you. 
Build honestly and your machine will run 
true to form and will carry you up and 
safely over the grade. 



CHAPTER XIII 

PLEASURES 

npHERE are flowers in the gardens, as 
-■- well as grain upon the hills. There is 
an esthetic life, as well as a material one. 
The proper mixture of the two makes for a 
well-ordered, successful existence. Pleas- 
ures well chosen and properly assimilated 
help materially in the onward climb. It 
can be well said that blessed is he who 
finds his pleasure in that which does not 
harm. 

I trust that I may be pardoned for again 
referring to values, but the subject of pleas- 
ures in life is so akin to that of values that 
it is almost, if not quite, impossible to dis- 
cuss one without referring to the other. It 
can well be said that the value placed upon 
pleasures is entirely relative. The artist 
revels in a winter sunset, a soft and shaded 

106 



MAKING THE GRADE 107 

twilight, and a harvest moon hanging re- 
splendent in a midnight sky. To the stolid 
brain of the peasant, no pleasures can be 
seen in any of these things; but to such a 
mug of ale served by a rough-armed bar 
maid is considered to be one of earth's 
choicest blessings. A game of golf is a 
great pleasure to one tired, brain-fagged 
business man; to another there is no value 
in the noble Scottish pastime, but a game 
of domino or checkers is a great treat. 
Comparisons in this way might be indefi- 
nitely prolonged to show the impossibilities 
of standardizing the values of pleasures. 
But enjoying pleasures in life is a great 
help in making the grades. The wise 
manufacturer knows that he cannot drive 
his machinery day and night ; he must give 
it an occasional rest. Molecules, inanimate 
though they be, will disintegrate, fall apart, 
and break down unless given rest. So it is 
with the human machine. Ceaseless driv- 



108 MAKING THE GRADE 

ing, constant application, continuous use of 
the motor and your organization breaks 
down under its own strain. 

Diversion then in the form of pleasures 
becomes of great value in making the 
grade. One of the fine arts of living con- 
sists of being able to get the maximum 
pleasure out of your climb and still con- 
tinue to drive ahead. 

It is a pleasure to live, love, and work, 
and one should be an incentive to the other. 
Under natural conditions this would be 
true, but civilization means living under 
artificial conditions. The higher the civili- 
zation, the more artificial it is. Mountain 
climbers strive to attain some far-away 
commanding peak, because it gives them 
vantage ground from which to survey the 
surrounding landscape. They get genuine 
pleasure out of being able to view the val- 
leys, the rivers, and the less commanding 
points from their eminence. The pleasure 



MAKING THE GRADE 109 

they derive from this outweighs the toil 
and the effort necessary to make them 
climb. Pleasure was the drive that urged 
the Alpine climber over fields of snow and 
ice, up and still up and on, and so the pleas- 
ures of making the grade grow apace as the 
journey continues. One rests on an emi- 
nence today, enjoys the flowers, the fruits 
and the scenery, and waves back at his fel- 
low climbers, then he turns his face reso- 
lutely to the fore and makes for the next 
commanding ridge. Pleasure in accom- 
plishment, that was the urge that drove 
him on. The failures, the eighty-five per 
cent, cannot get in tune with enjoyment of 
this kind. Material, animal enjoyment 
constitutes their pleasure. To one of this 
type there is no beauty in the orchid, but 
the cabbage carries to him a great happi- 
ness. There is no harmony in a symphony 
to him, but ragtime has an indescribable 
charm. But the keen pleasure that achieve- 



110 MAKING THE GRADE 

ment brings is one of the factors that makes 
for success. 

Yon cannot win unless you feel that you 
would rather have success than anything 
else in the world. A thoroughbred racer 
runs because he loves to run, but you have 
to ride a selling-plater with whip and spur. 
You cannot drive a man or woman up the 
hill. You may push or pull them up, but 
unless they want to go and want to go so 
badly that it hurts to be anywhere else ex- 
cept in the race trying, there is not much 
hope for such an individual being num- 
bered among the hill climbers. The pleas- 
ure in achieving is the urge that drives men 
on. The captain of industry and finance 
does not work solely because he wants to 
pile up money; money is his least concern; 
but he keeps on because he loves the game 
and enjoys the ride. Nothing is more piti- 
ful than the man whose sole idea of success 
is the accumulation of money and whose 



MAKING THE GRADE 111 

eyes never get above the dollar mark. The 
truly successful man thinks secondarily of 
money. He first mns on account of his love 
for the game, then money comes ; but that 
individual who thinks solely of money, 
never gets it and never experiences any of 
the great thrills that success brings. 

To select and enjoy pleasures that help 
in the climb is a fine art and comes with 
training and a broad understanding of life. 
It takes the inventor a long time to make 
his models, try them out and perfect a ma- 
chine that will serve. It is the same with 
life. It takes knowledge of the game, ac- 
quaintanceship with its many sides and a 
perfect understanding of the lights and 
shadows before one is capable of standing 
the strain that comes in the continuous up- 
ward climb. 



CHAPTER XIV 

KNOWLEDGE 

< < A ND ye shall know the truth, and the 
^^~^ truth shall make you free'' bears 
the vintage of an utterance made when 
civilization was young; and knowledge is 
truth. When you become really educated, 
the fetters fall away and you are free. 
Knowledge means more than being able to 
sign A.M., A.B., or LL.D., after your name. 
It means knowing life in all its varied rami- 
fications, under its different and many- 
colored settings; it means an understand- 
ing of the great cosmos, a correct interpre- 
tation of Nature's way and Nature's laws; 
it means that you must know and under- 
stand the cry of the weak and the feeble 
and harken unto that cry, that you be 
familiar with the ways of the strong and 
detect the hidden weakness in their sup- 

112 



MAKING THE GRADE 113 

posed strength. To know is the privilege 
of all, is within the reach of all, and will 
bless and benefit all. Kjiowledge is not 
relative, it is exact. When you know, yon 
are free. When yon bow to the unknow- 
able, when yon recognize anything as 
mysterious except space and time, then 
truly you are bound in the shackles of igno- 
rance. You must know to win. Ignorance 
is no excuse before the law, and Nature's 
law knows no pity. In the race of life you 
either win or lose. Man may pity the fail- 
ure, but Nature never does. When you fail, 
you fail and success never condones a mis- 
take. Knowledge cannot be laid hold of 
easily, but once it comes into your posses- 
sion, it remains for life. Men live by truth, 
by error they die. Man's only hope lies in 
knowing, knowing the laws, not man's laws 
because they are artificial, but in knowing 
the great laws of life. When you climb you 
do so because you work in harmony with 



114 MAKING THE GRADE 

laws. When you fall you do so because you 
transgress laws. To be educated is to know 
life and to obey law. Crime of every de- 
scription is the result of ignorance. Man 
would not be so foolish as to bring the suf- 
fering upon himself that follows the viola- 
tion of law if he only knew. 

Every man and woman wants to win. 
They start in life with high hopes and great 
expectations. They plan a brilliant future 
for themselves and then the}^ fail; but 
when you analyze these lives, why should 
they not fail? They followed the direct 
path that leads to failure, they were simply 
mistaken in their direction. You cannot 
reach Chicago by traveling south from St. 
Louis, but Chicago remains in its identical 
location and w^ould be glad to welcome you ; 
but if you travel in an opposite direction all 
the time you, and you only, can be blamed 
for not arriving at your destination. And 
so it is with life. You want to reach the 



MAKING THE GRADE 115 

harbor of success ; you deserve to reach it, 
but if you travel in the opposite direction, 
success is not to blame. Knowledge, real 
knowledge, keeps you from taking the 
wrong road; but you must have knowledge, 
the real kind, not the kind that says this 
or that is true because it is written in a 
book or spoken by someone else, but you 
must know the law that makes for truth. 
Knowledge can be obtained. It has never 
failed to open wide its doors to all who 
knocked loud and long; but faint-hearted, 
timorous requests never gained admittance 
to the Temple of Truth. It is impossible to 
monopolize knowledge. It cannot be cor- 
nered. There is an abundance with which 
to supply all the demands of those who are 
willing to pay the price. It is the only com- 
modity in the world that does not cheapen 
on account of its supply. It is just as ex- 
pensive today as it was when man first 
fought his way up through the silent ages 



116 MAKING THE GRADE 

of cell development; and it will be just as 
expensive a million years hence as it is to- 
day. You cannot cheapen knowledge. 
There is one price put upon it to all. It is 
worth the same to all and it serves all ex- 
actly alike. Knowledge rules, youth fails 
because it does not know the law, old age 
totters on to ruin because it does not know 
the law; but give one the light of truth, 
either in youth, middle life, or old age, and 
then success is his. 

Jacob wrestled with the angel until he 
received the blessing. Thus man must 
wrestle with the Angel of Truth until he 
gets the blessing that it can give to him. 
It is much easier to live in error. The fatal 
eighty-five per cent can attest to that fact. 
It is easier to ^4et George do it" than to do 
it yourself. It is easier to float down 
stream than to paddle against the current. 
It is easier to accept as true the statement 



MAKING THE GRADE 117 

made by someone else than to dig into a 
problem of life and solve it for yourself. 
Knowledge is life. Yon mnst know, or 
short indeed will be yonr race from the 
cradle to the grave. Where knowledge is 
there liberty abounds. Ignorance means 
servility. Eulers in Continental Europe 
have enjoyed the divine right of kings be- 
cause their vassals did not know. Wher- 
ever you educate, freedom is born. There 
is a difference between an education and 
knowledge. A college youth may be edu- 
cated and know less than a Russian peasant 
about life and its great truths. For this 
reason schools can be justly blamed for a 
part they play in the failures of life. 
Graduate boys or girls from the average 
high school, turn them out in life to make 
their way and ninety per cent of them will 
go on the rocks. They must be re-educated 
before they are of any value to the world 
or to themselves. This loss of time is a big 



118 MAKING THE GEADE 

factor in a human life. The period from 
the age of twelve to twenty looms big in 
life's brief span. It can be made the 
spawning time for ideas and become rich 
in a creative way. In school one should be 
taught life's problems. Culture has its 
place in the world and so has practicability. 
No doubt one of the great reasons for the 
success of the poor and the orphaned is be- 
cause boys of this class learn life and learn 
it young. They get off to a running start 
and when they hit the grade, they have 
been trained for hill climbing and the steep 
and rugged ascent presents no unusual dif- 
ficulties to them. 

Knowledge of life enables one to detect 
shams, hypocrisy, deceit and weakness of 
all kinds ; and when one is familiar with the 
weakness of his opponent, it gives to him 
added strength. Knowledge is the last lap 
in the race. When you reach this period 
the victory is won. When thus equipped, 



MAKING THE GRADE 119 

you know the value of industry, of honesty, 
of patience, you are familiar with all that 
health, self-confidence, optimism, and val- 
ues mean. You have come to the point 
where you are perfectly capable of 
strengthening any of the weak spots in 
your armamentarium; your motor has been 
tested and found to be staunch and true; 
the fallacies have been winnowed from the 
facts and the false separated from the true. 
Through wisdom ^s vision the crooked paths 
are made straight, and you no longer stag- 
ger in the dark. Knowledge crowns all 
achievement. It is the great hope and the 
blessing to mankind. 



CHAPTER XV 

INDUSTRY 

"PRIMITIVE man was lazy; inheritaiice 
-*" and environment made him so. His 
wants were restricted to food and raiment 
and these were of the simplest character. 
With the development of civilization wants 
and needs multiplied, bnt onr cell life of to- 
day has not escaped the impress made npon 
it by inheritance, and it requires an effort 
to throw off the desire to loiter by the way. 
Only by training can habits of industry be 
formed. Mental development marks the 
progress of civilization and civilization 
means the subjugation of the brute and ani- 
mal instincts. 

Progress in the arts, in science, and in 
economics has come about because man has 
applied his brains and his brawn to the 
mastery of these problems. His instincts 

120 



MAKING THE GRADE 121 

would have kept him still wearing animal 
skins instead of a dress suit and would 
have had him content with the music from 
a tom-tom instead of Mendelssohn strains; 
but the love call, the libido, proved to be 
stronger than primitive laziness, and man 
began to work and then to conquer. 

Undoubtedly the warp and woof of life 
is made up of love, work, and play; with 
the proper intermingling of these ingredi- 
ents you have a formula that brings success. 
A life that is lacking in either cannot be- 
come the full, well-rounded existence that it 
should. You must love to work. No great 
human achievement has ever been attained 
except through this urge. Eons ago it was 
this drive that made the male go forth and 
slay with tooth and claw and bring his kill 
to the cave that his mate and her little ones 
might eat and live. It is the same today. 
Mansions are built in gratification of the 
love instincts, mountains are tunneled, rail- 



122 MAKING THE GRADE 

roads are built, the air has been conquered, 
the lightning put in chains because men 
loved. The world is rocked by the greatest 
of all wars because men love their coun- 
try and for this love they are shedding 
their blood with reckless abandon. Go 
through the marts of trade and commerce, 
go to the halls of science, of art, and of 
literature, — everything that has endured 
has been wrought because men have loved 
and labored. The one is the handmaiden 
to the other. When you work from fear, 
fear of hunger and bodily discomfort, you 
are harking back to your animal ancestry; 
you have crushed from your life all there is 
in it except your primitive instincts; you 
have prostituted the dignity of labor and 
robbed yourself of the vital spark. Work 
without art is brutality. If you do not love 
your work you are leading yourself to the 
shambles and failure has marked you for 
its own. 



MAKING THE GRADE 123 

A brute builds a hut, a lover a palace. 
Kunners formerly carried to and fro all 
messages, first men on foot, then men on 
horseback ; but today we touch a key in New 
York and almost instantly San Francisco 
knows what is happening on Fifth Ave- 
nue. The bank of England or of France 
lowers or advances its rate of discount; in 
one hour, or less, the banks on Wall and 
La Salle Streets know what has been done. 
Love brought this about, love and work; 
but love for work and the lure of achieve- 
ment made this possible. 

The world is at war, but the aeroplane is 
the eye of the army and that country will 
win that has the most eyes. The Wright 
brothers are responsible for this. Their 
unconquerable love for work in aeronautics 
brought about the solution of aerial navi- 
gation. America built the Panama Canal, 
but not until the public health official and 
the hygienist through love, altruistic love 



124 MAKING THE GRADE 

for humanity, solved the problem of yel- 
low fever and malaria. Walter Reed so 
loved medicine and the people it served 
that he gave his own body for experimenta- 
tion and proved by personal experience 
how yellow fever was transmitted. He 
worked for love and he gained all that he 
lacked in life, immortality. The money 
grubber whose eyes have never been lifted 
above the dollar mark may not count 
Eeed's life a success, but the thirty million 
souls living south of the Mason and Dixon 
line that have been freed from the yellow 
fever scourge, call him blessed, and science 
has made a niche for him high up in her 
temple of fame. 

Industry and love go hand in hand and 
their union has made all conquests possible. 
Work without love is slavery. When you 
drive a man or a woman with a lash, you 
are nothing more than an animal trainer. 
The successful manufacturers and mer- 



MAKING THE GRADE 125 

chants, men of large affairs, who employ 
great numbers of men, have won because 
they have made their men love their work, 
and these manufacturers have so loved 
their own work that they have infused this 
spirit into everyone with whom they are 
associated. 

Fear never begot loyalty, patience, imag- 
ination, hope or courage; but love fathers 
all these. Get a man or boy, woman or girl, 
in love with their task in life, and you have 
put the key that unlocks all doors in their 
hands; but put hate in their hearts for a 
task of any kind, and you have forever 
bolted the door against them. 

That individual is of value to the world 
who creates something useful. Upon your 
handiwork you impress your character. 
The well-executed task shows the master's 
touch. The men who have made the grade 
are the men who have worked earnestly, 
loved passionately, and played hard. They 



126 MAKING THE GRADE 

have mixed well the ingredients of success 
and the result has been a satisfaction to 
them. One of the great lessons one must 
learn is to make his work the one grand pas- 
sion of his life. 

That individual who starts every day 
with keen enjoyment because it gives an op- 
portunity to work, is headed straight for 
Success Land. Nothing daunts this type of 
a man. Opposition, hardships, obstacles 
count for naught. To overcome them only 
makes him more certain of the goal. But 
that individual who works at a task be- 
cause it gives him food and raiment is in 
a sorry plight. He is a slave chained to 
the galley wheel. 

Hope begets industry. Destroy this in- 
centive and you put man upon a parity with 
the brute. Increase it and there is no 
limitation to his achievement. Well-di- 
rected, cheerful labor conquers. It for- 
ever remains one of the great factors in 
climbing toward the goal. 



CHAPTER XVI 

CONCENTRATION 

"D ESISTANCE gives way to superior 
•'^^ force continuously applied upon a 
given point. This is a law of physics and 
also a law of life. 

Concentrate your energy and you burn a 
way through opposition. One of the chief 
difficulties in life consists of not being able 
to concentrate. Few people when they 
work throw their entire energy into the 
task. Go into a store or a factory and take 
note of the employees. You will find most 
of them working in a desultory manner, 
doing just enough to keep up a semblance 
of being busy and thereby escape a repri- 
mand from the manager. The clock is 
watched assiduously and as soon as clos- 
ing time arrives, nothing can keep them one 
minute longer than is necessary to put their 
stocks in order and get away. Lack of con- 

127 



128 MAKING THE GRADE 

centration is one of the great contributing 
factors among those who cannot make the 
grade. 

Concentration is no easy task. It de- 
mands the most carefully trained will and 
a powerful determination. Thinking must 
always precede the act, except, of course, 
involuntary bodily movement. If we act 
with concentration we must think in the 
same way and let it be said here that well- 
trained, concentrated thinking comes only 
after much effort has been expended upon 
it. To think correctly is a difficult task. If 
you do not believe it, try to concentrate 
your mind on a given object for five min- 
utes; exclude all extraneous matter and 
think upon that one subject continuously. 
Try this for a time and you will be 
astounded at the magnitude of the task. 
After such an experience as this, it will be- 
gin to dawn upon you what little effort is 
really expended in your work. Train this 



MAKING THE GRADE 129 

way for thirty minutes a day and you will 
see an improvement in your results; it 
makes no difference in what endeavor you 
are engaged; and above all else you will 
realize what little time and effort you have 
been really giving to the great business of 
succeeding in life. 

In another chapter reference was made 
to the work of Carnegie and the establish- 
ing of free libraries. Sometimes I think 
that most of us read too much. Thinking 
is what the world needs. Eeference li- 
braries are all right. Know what your con- 
temporaries are doing, but above all else do 
something yourself, think for yourself, 
dare to stand alone and have your own 
ideas about things, concentrate all your 
psychic and your motor powers in your at- 
tack upon the forces that would keep you 
from winning and they will be put to flight. 

Men who win the big victories are those 
who concentrate all their abilities on the 



130 MAKING THE GEADE 

task in hand. Difficulties melt before the 
disintegrating power of concentrated and 
well-directed efforts. If boys and girls 
could be trained to think correctly and 
learn the power of concentration, the per- 
centage of failures would materially de- 
crease. Independent thinking results eas- 
ily from concentration; and independent 
thoughts and acts are the great need of the 
world. Following blindly in the path 
others have made, thinking the same as 
others have done brings on stagnation and 
mental death. 

Few individuals love work. Our primal 
instincts are against it and it is hard work 
to think logically, continuously and with 
concentration. It is easier to envy posses- 
sions of others than to gain such posses- 
sions ourselves. It is easier to delude our- 
selves with false hopes than to get out and 
take possession of opportunities and make 
our own impress upon the world's affairs, 



MAKING THE GRADE 131 

and the majority of men like to do the 
easier thing. 

It is amusing to hear men and women talk 
about the divine origin of man and claim 
kinship with a deity and all the while they 
exhibit a pronounced animal characteristic, 
that of aversion to real work. Few people 
really know how to work effectively. To 
them a task is measured by the number of 
hours it takes to get through with it just 
any old way. '^Put in the time, get what 
you can for it with the least effort'^ thus 
say the eighty-five per cent who think they 
work, but all the time they have an eye on 
the clock and their mind is far away gloat- 
ing over some withered flowers in the gar- 
den of pleasures. The world needs mes- 
sengers that will find Garcia, and men and 
women who will by the power of concentra- 
tion in thought and deed accomplish things. 

Efficiency is a popular theme at the pres- 
ent time. Efficiency experts have revealed 



132 MAKING THE GRADE 

a waste that has made the world gasp. They 
have demonstrated to manufacturers, to 
merchants, to bankers and professional men 
that only about twenty-five per cent of 
labor is productive, the other seventy-five 
per cent being waste. Think of it! work 
one hundred days on what could have been 
done in twenty-five ! Employ one hundred 
men to do the work that twenty-five should 
be able to accomplish ! Waste every where^ 
both material and human! Man's power 
lies in his -brain. If he does not use this 
power, then it is of no service to him. 
Brain power to be effective must be well di- 
rected and concentrated upon a given point. 
When men and women are capable of doing 
this, they can climb. There is no impass- 
able grade to them. When they do not 
concentrate and think independently, they 
are on the dead level with a graveyard not 
very far away. 



CHAPTER XVII 
INITIATIVE 

TNITIATIVE is the ability to think for 
one's self and the exercise of this power, 
with the mil to put yonr thoughts into exe- 
cution through action. The human ma- 
chine, like a material one, gets out of order 
occasionally and needs to be repaired. 
When you cannot make your own repairs 
and keep in the race, you are carrying a 
great handicap and will never last through 
a sweepstakes contest. Most of your time 
will be spent laid up in the shop waiting 
for someone else to put you back into the 
running. 

Initiative enables you to become your 
own mechanic. It keeps you in the run- 
ning all the time when the other fellow is 
waiting to be repaired, waiting his turn to 
get assistance. You help yourself and 

133 



134 MAKING THE GRADE 

gain a lap or two in the climb. Individual 
thinking makes for progress. I do not be- 
lieve in fatalism. Man is always the mas- 
ter of his destiny. We are what we are 
by our own acts and by our own acts we 
change our environment and our condition 
in life. We rise or fall, win or lose, over- 
come difficulties or succumb to them just 
as we choose. Human environment is the 
result of human thought and human action. 
By thought and action we change it. ' ' Will 
you pay the price?'' is the eternal ques- 
tion that confronts man from the cradle 
to the grave. 

Exercise of initiative is to work, to think, 
and to act. It means a never-failing spring 
of hope, of courage, of optimism and of 
determination. The soldier that picked up 
the broken sword on the battlefield when 
he had been fighting with no ^sword at all 
had initiative. The primitive man, when 
he first realized that a club swung with the 



MAKING THE GRADE 135 

mighty force of his savage arms gave him 
supremacy over his brutal opponent, had 
initiative and the development of this has 
solved all the problems of civilization and 
will continue to solve all of them. 

No ascent is too steep for the man with 
initiative. "WTien the granite cliffs of the 
Alps barred Napoleon ^s advent into Italy, 
he calmly remarked, ^^ There shall be no 
Alps,'' and proceeded to build roads over 
them. Lincoln said, ^^I will study and pre- 
pare myself and some day my chance will 
come." His initiative led him from the 
cabin in the Kentucky woods to the presi- 
dential chair and made him the liberator 
of a race. And why not think; when you 
do not you are closely akin to the brute 
and you live as the brute lives — to eat, to 
sleep, and to reproduce your kind. But 
initiative means that you must pay. It 
means not the path of primrose dalliance, 
but the life of strife. It is lamentable but 



136 MAKING THE GRADE 

nonetheless true, that few individuals real- 
ly think; many dream, most all put in the 
time, but to actually think out a problem 
in all its ramifications, to familiarize one 's 
self with all the facts connected with the 
task in hand is something that very few in- 
dividuals accomplish. The thinkers and 
the doers are the path finders, the trail 
makers, the hill climbers. Block their path 
today and tomorrow you will find that they 
have either removed the obstacle and cast 
it aside or else, like Napoleon, they have 
used the obstacle as he used the rock- 
ribbed mountain barriers, making a mac- 
adam road to the object that he sought. 

Matter must give way to mind. Thought 
has always conquered the material and it 
always will. The philanthropist aids most 
when he starts people to thinking. To dis- 
burse bounty in a material way is bad 
policy. There is a reason for poverty just 
as there is for disease. A hospital that is 



MAKING THE GRADE 137 

maintained for the mere purpose of har- 
boring the sick wonld be a curse instead of 
a blessing. Disease must be prevented as 
well as cured, and unless you remove the 
cause of disease you are not accomplishing 
much. To relieve poverty and not remove 
its cause is but little help, in fact it is a 
positive harm. When you can get an in- 
dividual to thinking you set his feet on 
firm ground and put him in a position to 
help himself and you must think or you are 
doomed. 

The cell instinct makes us lazy. The evo- 
lution of the dress suit from the fig leaf 
has been a long and toilsome journey and 
there are still more leaves than Tuxedoes 
being worn. One of the greatest indict- 
ments that the Orthodox church must bear 
is its stifling of independent thinking. Ig- 
norance and hypocrisy are twins. They 
are both spawn from the same cesspool 
and they both stifle and enslave. A man 



138 MAKING THE GRADE 

or a woman independent in thought and 
in deed has always been the pioneer, has 
always blazed the trail. But why so few 
path finders, why so many who never think 
one thought that is their own? Is it the 
fear of isolation? Men go in crowds, like 
birds. The herd instinct keeps them to- 
gether that they may be preserved. Just 
as it takes a well-built, honestly-made car 
to stand the acid test of the mountain 
climb, so does it take an individual with 
courage and endurance to think independ- 
ently and to exercise initiative. When 
civilization was young, men and women 
were tortured and burned at the stake be- 
cause they dared to break away from estab- 
lished customs in thought and act. While 
the fagot and the thumbscrew have passed 
into oblivion, the independent thinker must 
still run the psychologic gauntlet of the 
world and unless you have bravery, pluck. 



MAKING THE GRADE 139 

optimism and courage, your new ideas 
never get beyond the infantile stage. 

Most people doze mentally. Their 
thoughts run in a groove that was cut for 
them by tradition. Life is responsive to 
stimuli. A battery that does not spark 
when the current is applied will never carry 
a car up and over the grade. Teachers fall 
short of their objectives when they fail to 
impress upon their students the necessity 
of thinking for themselves. 

It is better to try and fail than never to 
try at all. Individual thinking should be 
encouraged in children. Unfortunately, 
how^ever, just the opposite is the case. 
Johnny starts out on his round of explora- 
tion with his inquiring mind making new 
discoveries at every turn. He is constantly 
admonished not to do this, that, or the 
other thing, and his brain is kneaded by 
negative suggestions like a bunch of dough. 
In time his inquiring mind is so bruised 



140 MAKING THE GRADE 

and beaten by the psychic shocks that it 
becomes like a worn-out battery and the 
stimulus from outside sources fails to pro- 
duce any response. These dough brains 
are then baked in the world ^s oven and, 
like pastry forms, are displayed in the shop 
windows of factories and counting rooms. 
To think for yourself and to put your 
thoughts into execution means progress. 
The world would have you stick to the 
beaten trail because the world dislikes 
change, but sameness is stagnation. When 
you dare to stand out from the crowd, 
when you have the courage to defy tradi- 
tion, when you have confidence in yourself, 
when you are willing to pay, when you 
think and act for yourself, then you are 
supplying the motive power that moves the 
world and this power is the great factor 
that helps you to climb to the top and make 
the grade. 



CHAPTER XVin 
CONCLUSIONS 

TN mathematics one mnst prove that his 
deductions and conclusions are correct. 
Answers to problems do not count in the 
realm of science unless they bear the 
searchlight of analysis. In life it is just 
the same. How to achieve success is the 
great problem, but who is to know when 
success is attained? 

To many success is a place somewhere; 
like a material heaven, it is hard to locate 
by direction. There is one thing sure, it 
is neither a city nor a country. It may be 
a harbor, landlocked and free from storm ; 
but never has a material ship ridden at 
anchor upon its waves. What then is this 
prize; where is this much-sought-for 
place; how is one to know when the goal 
has been won ; by what process of reason- 

141 



142 MAKING THE GRADE 

ing can one prove that he or she has made 
the grade and has climbed the hill? Why 
be honest; why be optimistic; why have 
health; why correctly know values; why 
Avork, laugh and love? It would seem to 
me that a correct answer to all these ques- 
tions can be found in the one word — 
SEEVING. ''Do you serve your fellow 
man?'^ is the acid test to be applied in the 
soul's laboratory. By this analysis you 
will know the truth. Men achieve success 
in accordance with the service that they 
render to the Avorld and to civilization. 
Material success is impossible unless you 
serve, and your life will be a dismal fail- 
ure unless you serve. Florence Nightin- 
gale, as she bended to her task of nursing 
the wounded and the sick on the battle- 
fields and in the hovels, was climbing the 
hill. By her serving she made the grade. 
Today the great profession of nursing 
with its white-robed messengers, number- 



MAKING THE GRADE 143 

ing more than forty thousand in America 
alone, pays tribute to her memory, and ev- 
ery sufferer on the blood-soaked fields of 
Europe or in the hospital ward anywhere 
in all the world blesses and reveres her 
name, and that's success. 

Walter Eeed, when he lay bare his arm 
to the sting of the mosquito in order that 
he might solve the mystery concerning the 
source from which yellow fever came, was 
serving, and today the Southland and the 
Tropics honor and revere his name, and 
that's success. 

Thomas Edison, toiling in his laboratory 
hour after hour, oblivious of the flight of 
time, so anxious is he to wring one more 
secret from Nature's woiiib, is serving; 
and every incandescent light that mirrors 
back to the world the sun's rays and every 
strain of harmony wafted on the midnight 
air from the phonograph are peans of vic- 
tory for Edison, and that's success. 



144 MAKING THE GRADE 

Marconi, as he worked and dreamed, 
knew the air conld be made into a beast of 
burden upon whose back the thoughts of 
man could ride at will. He was serving. 
Today every wireless message that hums 
its way around the world is a tribute of 
praise to Marconi, and that's success. 

Morse, Field, Lyden, Watts, Vanderbilt, 
Gould, Ford, Carnegie and those countless 
thousands who have climbed to the pinna- 
cle of human achievement have done so be- 
cause they served. They forgot self and 
in their efforts to render service, they 
achieved success. It is utterly impossible 
to succeed and to achieve in life unless you 
serve, and in your willingness to render 
service is recorded the degree of success 
that you attain. Civilization progresses 
only in accordance with the degree of serv- 
ice that man is willing to render to his fel- 
low man. 

To accumulate money is not success ; to 



MAKING THE GRADE 145 

do that is simply folloAving ont one of 
man^s primal instincts of storing np food 
for a rainy day. The crow and the squir- 
rels lay np nnts in the summer that they 
may live when winter comes with its snow 
and ice. There is more to life than the ac- 
cumulation of gold. To serve your fellow 
man, to advance civilization, to add some- 
thing to the sum total of human knowl- 
edge, to leave better than you found, that's 
success and that's the goal to win. To do 
this you must climb the hills, you must 
know the truth and live its tenets. For 
this reason it is necessary that you have 
health, that you be an optimist, that you 
have patience, that you know values, that 
you have confidence in your undertakings, 
that you be honest, that you have knowl- 
edge, that you be able to concentrate, and 
that you have initiative. Mix well these 
ingredients. They constitute the warp 
and woof of life, and then with faith and 
loyalty serve, — that's success. 



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